1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotary head cleaning apparatus for cleaning the rotary head mounted on the rotary drum such as a head for a magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus and to the magnetic recording-reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a rotary drum and a video head cleaning mechanism for a conventional magnetic recording-reproducing apparatus. In this diagram, numeral 1 designates a rotary drum including a rotatable upper drum 1a and a lower drum 1b making up a lead for a tape guide. A head (not shown) is mounted on the peripheral surface of the upper drum 1a. Tape guides 3a, 3b are arranged at the tape outlet and the tape inlet, respectively, in the vicinity of the peripheral surface of the rotary drum 1. A cleaning roller 2 is mounted in the vicinity of the peripheral surface of the rotary drum 1 through an arm 4 coupled to the tape guide 3a at the tape outlet side. The cleaning roller 2, which constitutes a video head cleaning mechanism, is operatively interlocked with the tape guide 3a, and the tape guide 3a makes the peripheral surface of the roller come in contact with the peripheral surface of the rotary drum 1 at the tape outlet side in order to clean the head, as follows.
When the magnetic recording-reproducing apparatus loads the tape for a recording or reproduction operation or unloads the tape after a recording or reproducing operation, the cleaning roller 2 comes in contact with the rotary drum 1, thereby cleaning the head.
The aforementioned conventional video cleaning mechanism is adapted to clean the head only at the time of loading or unloading. During a continuous recording or reproduction for a long time, say, longer than 100 hours, however, the head, which may be contaminated in the process, cannot be cleaned. After a long recording or a long reproduction, a single cleaning operation could not clean off contaminations sufficiently. Nor is it possible to confirm whether the cleaning is sufficient or not.